Amy Mather

Curating Omaha with Podcasts

So says Amy Mather, adult program manager at Omaha Public Library and host of the podcast
“Whatever Mathers.”

Friends and acquaintances had been telling her to post her knowledge of the city, about the food, the art openings. “A lot of people told me I should blog, and I really hate writing,” Mather says, “I overthink it, whereas if it’s coming out of my mouth, it comes out once.”

When fellow Design Alliance Omaha board member Bryce Bridges told her she should do a podcast instead, “it took about six months for me to really consider it seriously,” she says. But after the first episode aired in September 2011 with the help of Clete Baker of Studio B, Mather embraced the idea of documenting what’s happening in the city now. “I think of it as curating Omaha,” she says with a smile.

“I find people super interesting. There is a creativity explosion happening here. It’s an important thing to capture.”

Bridges, who has a family background in radio, finalizes the themes and gathers the guests for the podcast’s three-speaker panels as executive producer of “Whatever Mathers.” “I wanted to sit people at a table and poke and prod and ask why they’re doing what they’re doing,” Bridges says of the podcast’s raison d’etre, “The only thing missing is alcohol.” He adds with a laugh that such lubrication is unnecessary thanks to the way Mather handles the hour-long conversations. “Amy has a great way of letting people just be honest. When we sit people around the table with her, good things happen.” He adds that there’s not even much editing, just a few outtakes of jokes at a podcast’s end.

“I find people super interesting,” Mather admits. “There is a creativity explosion happening here. It’s an important thing to capture.” She typically asks three questions of her podcast guests, an example of which is “What do you think creativity is?” from her second podcast entitled “You don’t take sand to the beach.”

“It’s a very basic question to ask, but you get so many different answers,” Mather says.

Guests of “Whatever Mathers” have included local designer Steve Gordon, Design Alliance Omaha founder Tom Trenelone, acupuncturist Donna Hubert, and Anne Meysenburg of Kent Bellows Studio, just to name a few. Mather ends each podcast by asking her guests about their Big Love, encouraging them to reveal one thing they’re really excited about or have fallen in love with recently. The kale salad at Lot 2 has come up twice.

Despite living in several other states for many years and only being in Omaha for five, Mather states with delight that Omaha is the center of the universe. “I mean, in five years, I’ve met tons of amazing people, and there’s all this stuff happening,” she says. “I love Omaha, and I’m really proud of it. I just want to show, you know, we’re a bunch of badasses here. Look at what we’re doing.”

Interested listeners can visit whatevermathers.libsyn.com or search for “Whatever Mathers” on the iTunes store and subscribe to the podcast to hear new and old episodes.